Working with GitHub Enterprise

GitHub Enterprise (GHE) is intended for College members who are working with sensitive data or have a requirement for strict security in the storage of code, over and above that offered by private repositories in GitHub.com. (E.g. researchers whose funder has stipulated that code must be stored geographically on-site or in the UK). Users who simply require free public/private repositories may prefer to use GitHub.com

To create and own repositories in GitHub Enterprise, you must have a College user account.

GitHub Enterpise FAQ ACC

Getting Access to GitHub Enterprise

Any College user may login to GitHub Enterprise using their normal College username and password which will be verified by the College LDAP service before access is granted. Users may create new repositories, organizations and teams.

Due to the nature of projects stored in GitHub Enterprise, access to GitHub Enterprise is only allowed from the College Network or via VPN (or another suitable secured remote network connection). Similarly, external collaborators are not allowed unless they have a verifiable College users account – this can however include Guest Accounts.

A user needs to have logged into GitHub Enterprise at least once before they are visible to other users of GitHub Enterprise to be given access to repositories, be made members of teams or be made ‘external’ collaborators.

It is recommended that all users familiarize themselves with using an SSH Public key connection to simplify their working access to GitHub Enterprise – details can be found here:

Creating a new GitHub Enterprise repository

1. From your GitHub Enterprise dashboard click the plus symbol (+) in the top right corner and select 'New repository'.

2. Make sure the owner is either yourself or a required owner selected from the dropdown list, enter a new repository name and select any other options you require, as shown below:

3. Click the green ‘Create repository’ button - your repository will be created and a confirmation screen will be displayed:

Creating Organizations within GitHub Enterprise

Organisations are optional in GitHub Enterprise, however if you create a new Organization this will help you manage multiple repositories. If you create a new team please ensure it has a meaningful name and a description to help other who might need to know what the Organization is for and who owns it.

Whoever creates the new Organization will become its initial Owner and they can add additional “owner’s”, teams etc as well as managing general access to the Organization and its repositories.

It is preferable that an Organization is created before creating new repositories as this ensures that any new repositories are ‘owned’ by the Organization from the outset, it is possible to transfer an existing repository to a new Organization, please see:

The person doing the transfer needs to be an ‘owner’ of both the Organization and of the repository to be transferred into the Organization.

Create a new Team in GitHub Enterprise

Teams can be used in GitHub Enterprise as they can in GitHub.com however, a user must have logged into GitHub Enterprise at least once before that user that can be added to a team.

Teams can also be based on existing College security (Active Directory/LDAP) groups. Again, any existing group members must have logged into GitHub Enterprise at least once before they become visible within the new team.

Manage large files linked to GitHub Enterprise

There is currently a 100MB limit on individual files which can be uploaded to GitHub Enterprise. This is to prevent spurious files being stored in GitHub Enterprise. If you need to store test data or large data sets with your code files (which would be stored in GitHub Enterprise) then please contact the ICT Service Desk for further information as to how this can be provided.

Collaborate with external users within GitHub Enterprise

Due to the nature of the data stored in GitHub Enterprise, external users cannot be given access to GitHub Enterprise unless they have a valid College user account. However, guest accounts can be added as GitHub Enterprise users.

Migrate an existing repository from GitHub.com into GitHub Enterprise

You can use existing Git / GitHub tools to migrate repositories from GitHub.com to GitHub Enterprise. To do this: